Chapter 4
Leo
I got a kick out of making Rafe squirm. We grew up together.
We’d always been like brothers, and I never missed a chance to give him crap whenever I could.
He was level-headed most of the time, so I didn’t get as many opportunities as I did in high school when he chased after the head cheerleader for an entire year.
To be honest, I hadn’t seen him that stupid over a girl since then. Until Lexi came into the picture.
I could tell from day one that she was different.
Rafe clammed up and didn’t want to spill details.
If it was just some girl he met at a club, he’d talk about how they met and where they went for a late-night snack and what music she liked and if she had a crazy family.
We never trash talked our dates, but we shared funny stories and kept each other in the loop.
So when he wouldn’t talk about this one, it was pretty obvious that he wanted to keep things private for a reason.
Rafe saying it was only professional concern was total bullshit.
I knew my friend too well for that. He might not dip his pen in the office ink, but he sure as hell didn’t act like it was the nineteenth century and avoid all the women who ever went to that gym.
He closed ranks, acted like he needed to protect her.
He only gave me the bare minimum of information when I asked. He never offered information freely.
The thing was, I knew he’d been seeing her for weeks.
I knew because instead of coming home to shower and have a few beers after his self-defense classes twice a week, he always rolled in about three hours later than usual.
I’d ask if she had come to class, and he’d say yes.
They’d go to Lacy’s afterward for a bite to eat.
His face when he talked about her—it was hilarious and pathetic at the same time. What little he’d ever say was said with a serious expression like he was talking about church or the Constitution or something else extremely important.
“Does she have a key to the apartment yet?” I asked him once, and he gave me the finger.
I was just talking shit, but I was concerned for the guy.
He was in deep and didn’t even know it. He hadn’t brought her around the house yet, so I hadn’t seen her, although he had finally showed me a picture on his phone.
She had sent it to him from work one day, a selfie with a bakery bag and the caption, ‘wish you were here but I wouldn’t share my bagel’.
He had grinned when he showed it to me, like it was something really clever and adorable. He had it bad, and I told him so.
I’d just come off a fire call, showered, and went to Lacy’s. I figured I’d meet the girl he hadn’t told me much about. When I walked in the diner, I saw Rafe sitting in a booth, a dark-haired girl across from him. I went to their table to sit down with them.
Rafe took one look at me, stood up and moved to sit beside Lexi, “Come on and have a seat, man. We got room,” he said, indicating the empty side of the booth.
“You must be Leo,” she said, smiling at me.
I’d seen a picture of her. I knew what she’d look like, but I wasn’t prepared for how little justice the picture had done her. Her smile was enough to knock me on my ass.
“Hey. I thought I might get a chance to meet you if I dropped by. Since my boy here is ashamed of our house.”
“No way, we have a great house. You can see the house anytime. It’s this jackass I didn’t want you to meet. Thought he’d scare you off,” Rafe said to Lexi.
“I don’t scare off that easily, do I? I’ve been wanting to meet the hero fireman. Save any kittens from any trees today?” she asked me.
I had to laugh. I liked her humor. “Not today. I did slay a few dragons and stopped some old wiring from smoldering in an attic,” I said modestly.
“How many dragons?” she said, “I always thought a few meant three, like a couple is two, but I’m not sure about that.”
“At least five,” I said, boasting of my imaginary dragons.
“See, I think five would be several, not a few. That’s the problem with the English language as far as I’m concerned. We don’t have enough specific words.”
“I see your point,” I said, “but I think we have some great specific words. Like beer, for example. Nachos, there’s a good one.”
She laughed. Lexi had a great laugh. I had gone to the diner to meet the girl and have more ammunition to tease Rafe.
But I liked her already. What was more, I could see how he felt about her.
He didn’t have his arm around her, but he kept looking at her, then shredding his paper napkin or picking at his pie, like he was really busy trying not to put his arm around her.
“As Rafe’s oldest friend, I would like to know your intentions toward him.”
Rafe choked on his coffee, and Lexi smacked him on the back until he could breathe. I chuckled.
“My intentions? I guess my plan is to pay the check when we’re done because he bought my dinner on Wednesday, and it’s my turn. Then I’ll see him at class next week.”
“That’s cute. But I’m talking about my boy Rafe here. He’s trying to be a gentleman, obviously. But I’ve known him long enough to say I haven’t seen him with a crush this bad since Ashley Potter in eleventh grade.”
“Really? How’d that work out?” she said.
“Well, they’re married now and have eight kids,” I deadpanned.
“Nah, he’s thinking of himself and Ashley. Poor guy. She wouldn’t even look at him,” Rafe chimed in. “He had a t-shirt made with her face on it that said ‘I heart Ashley’ on the back. They even put a picture of it in the yearbook. It was so sad.”
Lexi giggled, “Really?”
“No,” I told her. “He’s just trying to dodge the fact that he hasn’t acted that stupid since then. Until now. The amount of time he spends avoiding my questions about you should tell you --”
“Should tell you what a nosy bastard my best friend is. Asks me questions about you all the time. I think he’s obsessed with you,” Rafe said.
“Me? You’re the one obsessed with her. I never met her till tonight.
“We’re not even Facebook friends,” I said .
“I do follow your Instagram. And that’s a lot of selfies at the firehouse, I gotta say,” she said.
“Can I help it if I’m photogenic and the firehouse has a ton of props for background? Brick walls, fire trucks, pole, hoses --”
“Yeah, it’s like you’re auditioning for a Hot Firefighters calendar of your own,” she said.
“I wouldn’t say no to a deal like that,” I said.
“While it’s hilarious to scroll through my feed and see five selfies of you with your shirt off, you could seriously be a model.
You don’t look like a real fireman. You look like the kind of firemen they put in those pictures in Cosmo and on romance novel covers.
The too-good-to-be-true kind,” she said.
“We were both wrong,” I said to Rafe. “ She’s the one who’s obsessed, and she’s obsessed with me.”
“Yeah, who knew you were online stalking my roommate,” Rafe said to her sternly. She laughed.
“I had to check out my competition for your time and attention,” she deadpanned. “I had to know what I was up against. And he was obviously too vain to be a threat.”
I laughed. I also stopped to marvel at how well she fit in with us, like she had always been part of our dynamic.
She could trash talk with the note of fondness that let us know she was on our side.
We were so comfortable going back and forth.
We stayed there for hours just talking and laughing.
When it was late enough, we all admitted we had to go home, and it felt strange not taking her home with us. That was the weirdest part of all.
The second weirdest was the fact that I was attracted to her.
Even when she teased me or gazed at Rafe a little too long, I still imagined the things I’d like to be doing to her.
Looking at her, hearing her laugh, all of it made me want her.
I knew she was Rafe’s, and I would never take my best friend’s girl, but I was a flesh and blood man.
I’d add her to my spank bank and never say word one about it.
As we were leaving to walk her to her car, I thought of something, a way to spend a little more time with her, the three of us. We meshed well, and it was fun. So I went for it without asking Rafe.
“Hey, want to come spar with us at the gym tomorrow around eleven?” I asked.
“What do you do?”
“We fight. Sometimes we box, kickbox, a little MMA. I don’t do krav maga like Rafe, but I can hold my own.”
“I’d like to see that,” she said, “Thanks. I’ll be there.”
I found myself grinning. When I looked at Rafe, he was smiling, too. I wasn’t the only one who thought we were a good fit. And if she was going to be his girl, I might as well get used to being with both of them.